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Holocene sedimentary environment and characteristics in the Poyang Lake
... Based on studies of the Pleistocene-Holocene sedimentary environment and features of Poyang, Zhang and Chen (1996) determined the age of the lower sediment boundary at 12,000 years. Therefore, it has taken 12,000 years for Poyang Lake to develop three types of sedimentary systems, which were an alluvial fan or fan delta depositional system, followed by a river sedimentary system and delta depositional system. ...
... These grainsize distribution characteristics suggest that there are two complete sedimentary cyclicities in the subaqueous sediment of the unconsolidated sandy strata, which indicates that two large-scale increases in the lake level have occurred in Poyang Lake since the formation of Songmenshan Island (Yanshan Epoch) (Li et al. 2016;Yuan 2019). Zhang and Chen (1996) found two sets of mudstone deposits on the west side of Poyang lake but only one of these mudstone deposits is well-preserved on the east side (Fig. 10b, d). In addition, they found that Poyang Lake has experienced four significant climatic evolution cyclicities. ...
... The lithology histogram on the left side of (c)s summarizes the four outcrop lithology histograms to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the lithological changes in upper Pleistocene-Holocene strata on Songmenshan Island. b and d are sedimentary sections from the west (well ZKI-2) and east sides (well ZKVIII-1) of Poyang Lake, respectively (modified by Zhang and Chen 1996) Springer Nature journal content, brought to you courtesy of Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH ("Springer Nature"). Springer Nature supports a reasonable amount of sharing of research papers by authors, subscribers and authorised users ("Users"), for small-scale personal, non-commercial use provided that all copyright, trade and service marks and other proprietary notices are maintained. ...
In fault-bounded lacustrine basins, the lake basement may be exposed due to tilting of crustal blocks, forming islands of varying size. Such islands are commonly associated with sandy facies that may serve as important reservoirs for oil and gas accumulation. The present study investigated large sand bodies of Pleistocene-Holocene age on Songmenshan Island in the center of Poyang Lake, Jiangxi Province, southern China. The relationship of sedimentation on Songmenshan Island to its formation history was analyzed by means of Google satellite observations and field studies combined with scanning electron microscope, grain size, and ¹⁴ C dating analyses. The area of Songmenshan Island (39 km²) represents 8% of the total lake area (500 km²), and its height (81 m) is several times greater than that of the depth of the surrounding lake (13 m). The island has been uplifted since ~ 5 Ma at a rate of ~ 16 m Myr− 1 as a consequence of intrabasinal block faulting. The surficial deposits of the island consist of wave-controlled beach-bars in the lower part (< 36 m elevation) and wind-controlled eolian dunes in the upper part. Sedimentary characteristics were different between beach bars and sand dunes in terms of bedding, sedimentary structures, and grain size and texture. The beach bars are characterized by low-angle cross-bedding, fan-shaped conchoidal, and disciform fractures, and small V-shaped impact craters on quartz grain surfaces. The eolian dunes are characterized by large-scale high-angle cross-bedding, dish-, crescent-, and V-shaped impact craters on quartz grain surfaces. Whereas sand movement in the beach-bar facies was dominantly through traction, saltation was the major process in the eolian dune environment. The depositional history of Songmenshan Island can be divided into 3 stages: (1) deltaic sedimentation from the Ganjiang and Xiushui rivers, which are connected to the Yangtze River via a channel; (2) wave reworking of deltaic sediments in shoreline beach-bar facies after initial uplift; and (3) wind reworking of sands in eolian dune facies following further uplift. Later in its history, Songmenshan Island was reduced through wind and wave erosion into two subequal parts (19.6 km² and 19.8 km²), producing its present configuration. The large sand bodies comprising this island may eventually be buried in a cocoon of organic-rich lacustrine muds, yielding an exploration target. Songmenshan Island may thus serve as a model for development of sand-rich reservoir facies in fault-bounded lacustrine basins.
... 1) The initial surface for the simulation is derived from the present-day digital elevation data obtained from the USGS dataset (Zou et al., 2008). Various published studies indicate that there has been no major tectonic movement over the duration of deltaic development in the past 1200 years apart from a very slow rate of subsidence (Ma and Wei, 2002;Zhang and Chen, 1996;Zhu et al., 1981). With these assumptions, the initial surface was constrained by the present digital elevation and the present stratal thicknesses preserved. ...
... As direct field observation of the Poyang Lake sedimentary facies is limited, this discussion is primarily based on some recent sedimentological studies (e.g. Ma and Wei, 2002;Zhang and Chen, 1996;Zhu et al., 1981) and remote sensing work (Zou et al., 2010). The comparison is mainly based on the morphology and sediment thickness from limited borehole data. ...
... The simulated sediment deposits in each river mouth area generally well represent the observed construction of the deltaic systems in the Poyang Lake (Fig. 4E). The simulation shows that the Ganjiang River delta comprises fan-shaped deposits covering the greatest area among the five deltas as a result from the largest discharge and sediment supply of the Ganjiang River, which is consistent with field observations (e.g., Zhang and Chen, 1996;Zhu et al., 1981). The size of the Ganjiang River delta from the simulation is close to that observed from the remote sensing data (Zou et al., 2010) with approximately1589 km 2 from simulation versus 1544 km 2 from the remote sensing survey. ...
... On the other hand, at the top 0-285 cm, the occurrence of shells is relatively rare, and the lithology is dominated by fine-grained sediments (Fig. 1), suggesting a relatively deeper water with off-shore depositional environment, which is in accordance with our reconstructed deep-water depth (4.0 ± 0.6 m, N = 22) after the 15th century (Fig. 5A). Furthermore, a geological survey carried out in the 1990s around Poyang Lake found the absence of typical lacustrine deposit at the current lakeside during the Holocene (Zhang and Chen, 1996), implying that Poyang Lake has not expanded to these areas throughout the Holocene. This evidence supports our reconstruction that the lake water level was at the highest around the 1990s during the past two millennia. ...
The human society is facing growing flood risks due to the rapidly-changing global climate. Understanding how early human coped with flooding will shed light on the increase of contemporary social resilience to projected intensified extreme climate change. However, assessment of such ancient human response to hydrological changes remains difficult due to the paucity of records for flood risk coupled with ancient human activities. Here, we present a two-millennium continuous reconstruction of water level changes for Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater body, using microbial tetraethers extracted from a well-dated sedimentary core. The rising trend of lake water level over the past 2000 years indicates an increase in flood risks for this fertile region that has long been populated by ancient human settlements. A comparison with spatial-temporal distribution of ancient cities and towns in the lake basin reveals that, during the first millennium, human settlements passively retreated outwards and upwards away from the lake to minimize flood risk due to the rising lake water. However, a reversal pattern occurred at ∼1000 CE, witnessing human settlements to moving closer to lakeshore during the second millennium despite of the high water table. The strategic shift, accompanied by a booming economy in southern China during the Song Dynasty, was possibly facilitated by technology innovations, such as intensified water conservancy construction and enhanced shipbuilding, in and around the lake basin. Such an enhanced social resilience in responding to flood risks as early as 1000 years ago remains as a common practice today although the unprecedented scale of anthropogenic climate change in the near future may post additional and unexpected challenges.
By the study of modern deposition in Poyang Lake Delta, planar morphology and structural features of underwater distributary channel and mouth bar were established. And the widths of two facies were established by statistics of dense well network data in Yonganzhen Oilfield, then the quantitative training images were created. On the basis, the delta front microfacies was simulated using multi-point geostatistics Sneisim algorithm. The simulation results have the characteristics of matching to well point data, and planar morphology and size of different microfacies are constrainted by quantitative characteristics of the training images, which reproduces geometric characteristics and spatial structure of delta front distributary channel and mouth bar. The sedimentary microfacies model created by this method can well reflect modern sedimentary characteristics and the actual situation of underground.
Large-scale shallow-water deltas in lacustrine basins have recently been identified as important reservoir plains in the world. The Poyang Lake, the largest fresh water lake of China, develops a series of modern shallow-water deltas, hence provides a good modern analogue for understanding various key depositional processes that control deltaic development and evolution. This paper uses Sedsim, a three-dimensional stratigraphic forward modelling program, to simulate the development and evolution of the shallow-water deltas in the Poyang Lake by considering a number of key processes and parameters affecting the deltaic deposition over 1200 years. According to our simulation results, the construction of the shallow-water deltas in the Poyang Lake is primarily controlled by the lake level fluctuations, the discharge rate of sediment, and the pre-existing topography/bathymetry. It shows that the sand bodies in the delta front are basically sand sheets, which are mainly distributed near the lake open circulation area due to the shallow water depth of the lake, the gentle slope of the depositional basement and the high frequency of lake-level fluctuations. In addition, the frequency of relative lake level oscillation appears to be a significant controlling factor on the development and divarication of river channels on the upper delta plain. A lower rate of the lake level rise and a faster rate of the lake level fall would cause enhanced river channel development and divarication. This study not only enables us to quantitatively understand the dynamic processes of shallow-water delta systems and the key factors controlling the deltaic development and evolution but also provides a reference model for similar ancient depositional systems in sedimentary basins, where active hydrocarbon exploration is currently being undertaken.
Jiangxi Province in southeastern China contains Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China. Poyang Lake and the lower sections of the major Jiangxi rivers flowing into the lake often flood during the early summer months. Floodwater can be several meters above the surrounding lowlands during the most severe flood events. Levees at the margins of Poyang Lake and along the Jiangxi rivers provide flood protection for about 10 million people. The number of severe floods in this region has increased rapidly during the past few decades, resulting in catastrophic levee failures. The three factors likely responsible for the increasing frequency of severe floods are (1) land reclamation and levee construction and (2) lake sedimentation, both of which reduce lake volume, and (3) increasing Changjiang water level, which slows Poyang Lake drainage.
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